Shootings: You're safer than you may think

Police weren't even done giving press conferences on Chris Dorner's bloody rampage from Irvine to Big Bear when another gunman terrorized our county Tuesday from Ladera Ranch to Tustin.

Each week, the death toll mounts, as if we were at war with ourselves: Newtown, Conn.: 20 children and six adults shot dead at school. Aurora, Colo.: 12 shot dead and 58 wounded in a theater. Closer to home, there was Seal Beach: eight shot dead and one wounded at a hair salon.

A school. A hair salon. And, on Tuesday, pre-dawn commutes.

Is no place safe?

Around office coffee pots and dinners tables this week, many people – even experts who know otherwise — are wondering if we're reverting to the Wild West.

"It's been an especially disturbing few weeks in Orange County and even I feel uncomfortable on the freeway," says Keramet Reiter, a professor of criminology at UCI.

"But it's important to acknowledge that crime has been declining in the past 10 to15 years – dramatically."

That's right. Statistically, you are less likely to be killed by another person today than you were in 1960, according to the Uniform Crime Reports prepared by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data.

Though murder rates were much higher in the late 1980s and early 1990s than either in 1960 or today, the trend, for more than a decade, has been positive.

So, why do so many of us feel less safe?

"Random violence can feel especially scary." Reiter says. "And when it happens on a street you drive by every day, it seems closer than it is."

While it brings little comfort to the families and friends of those killed by random madmen, Reiter says such incidents only exaggerate fear – not actual danger – for everybody else.

This is not to deny that there are more murders today than 50 years ago. There are; plenty more. But there are a lot more of us, as well.

In 1960, for instance, 9,110 Americans were murdered or killed by "nonnegligent manslaughter," FBI stats show. In 2011, that number rose to 14,622.

But when you factor in population growth, the rate of people killed has dropped: From 5.1 per 100,000 people in 1960 to 4.9 per 100,000 in 2011 – a full half-century later.

Still, the idea that we are safer is hardly the perception this week.

Randy Vannoy woke up Tuesday morning to the sound of helicopters over his house in Orange, later learning that gunman Ali Syed had killed himself less than a block away.

It confirmed Vannoy's recent decision to move to Idaho.

"I'm fed up with Orange County," he said.

And Sue Johnson, who works near the Tustin spot where Syed executed a man on the sidewalk, also feels a sea-change in the air.

When she drives on the freeway, she said, "I don't even want to look at people anymore."

Fears like these are normal, says Irvine psychoanalyst Barry Ross.

"There are real threats in the world," he says. "The question is, how much do these fears dominate a person's life?"

Some may think about violent crime for an hour a year, while others may not leave their house for a year – an extreme reaction.

"Certainly, we are all affected by things like this," he says. "It increases our fear. But over time, our fear fades and we go on with our lives."

That describes Steve Hilleshiem's reaction. He was eating lunch with Vannoy and Johnson Wednesday at a Tustin sandwich shop, discussing this week's shooting.

"It's just more random craziness," Hilleshiem said. "It's a statistical anomaly. I'd be more afraid of being hit by an asteroid."

An asteroid is not likely to kill you, but statistics show that the French fries we eat can.

Our No. 1 killer is heart disease, according to the Center for Disease Control, and our No. 2 killer is cancer. Together, they are responsible for half of all deaths each year.

And what about homicide, the thing on everyone's mind this week? On the list of the ways we die in the United States, murder ranks No. 15.

Even in California – home of Charles Manson, the L.A. riots and, in recent weeks, Christopher Dorner – we may be safer than you think.

In 1960, some 616 Californians were killed by murder or nonnegligent manslaughter. A half-century later, in 2010, that number rose to 1,809. But, again, your chances of being killed barely moved: from 3.9 per 100,000 in 1960 to 4.8 per 100,000 in 2010.

Same with Orange County. The county reported 77 homicides in 2002, and 74 in 2011. So homicides are down here even if you don't adjust for the fact that the county's population grew by about 5 percent during that period.

There's also the issue of who is doing the killing.

An FBI report shows that of the 12,664 Americans murdered in 2011, less than 1,500 – or 12 percent – were murdered by a stranger. The vast majority of homicides were committed by people who knew the victim.

Highly publicized killing sprees like the shootings in Tustin and Los Angeles exaggerate the danger posed by strangers.

Still, horrific incidents of rogue gunmen get news coverage many of us consume virtually as it happens. Psychoanalyst Ross says modern communication technologies alter our perception of the world, bringing news of violent crime to us in ways that make them much more vivid than ever before.

"It's picturesque on TV and sensationalized, which makes it look like it's happening a lot more."